One of my all-time favorite books is James Kerr’s great book “Legacy” about the New Zealand All Blacks and how they have set the bar as the winningest sports organization in the world.
The book outlines 15 chapters, to mirror 15 players on the pitch, and outlines many of the All Blacks core values that they developed after they were unsuccessful in their quest to win the 2007 Rugby World Cup (won by South Africa due in part to Nelson Mandela’s encouragement for the host nation to transform their country post-apartheid)
One of the quotes in the book is “Better People Make All Blacks”, when Kerr was interviewing former New Zealand All Blacks Head Coach Graham Henry among others and shared their core leadership (coaches, exec, and team leaders) identified that they would have to go thru a rebuild after they lost.
The premise behind it, they knew they would need to fill many positions that would be vacant due to players that were retiring or not having their contracts renewed and as they had set the bar as the most winningest sports organization in the world would be seeking players to fill those roles.
If the choice to fill a position came down to the players, both have similar skill sets, the player that would be offered a roster spot would be one they felt had better character, one that was selfless, a team player, willing to sacrifice everything for the team vs. another that may not buy-in to the team and organizations culture.
Fast forward to 2011 and 2015, because of the all black recruiting better people, they won back to back World Cups and are aspiring for a repeat in 2019.
Other sports organizations have, or have aspired to follow suit, as a result;
- The Golden State Warriors:
Now in their 4th consecutive NBA Final vs. their arch-rivals Cleveland Cavaliers, winning the first game in OT, then dominating Lebron James and the Cav’s in Game 2 where Steph Currey set a record for 9 3 Pointers, one of which was a buzzer beater from ½ court!
Anyone that talks about Steph’s journey to the NBA talks about how good a person he is, how humble he is, and how dedicated he is to his craft.
Every level that Steph was at they would say he was too small, starting in high school, then college, and even in the NBA, although he has evolved to one of the best, if not becoming the best, 3 point free throwers in the game, he was the 7th pick in his draft year.
All the experts say that was the best 7th overall pick EVER.
- The Las Vegas Golden Knights
Although down 2-1 in the series now against Ovie’s Caps, Gerard Gallant refused to throw any of his players under the bus, include young Shea Theodore who made a couple of costly mistakes in game 3 that lead to goals and the win by the Caps.
Gerard continued to stand behind his players as he has all year long in their inaugural season, sharing how the room was filled with great leaders, great people, all of which had come together for a common quest, to play as a team and there is still a lot of hockey left.
Much has been written about the amazing story of the Golden Knights in their Cinderella season, but they would not be where they are today if the organization as a whole did not select players of character, all willing to buy-in to the system, be selfless and PLAY FAST per prior post.
- The Vancouver Canucks
Although it took them a couple of years to admit it, thanks to the retirement of the Sedins (a year or two before I anticipated to confess, still believe they could have played at a high level) Jim Benning, Trevor Linden has owned up to the fact they are going thru a “rebuild”
The same rebuild that John Tortorella referred in his interview when he was fired by the Canucks after their worst season in many years, where he stated they needed to get younger in order to compete in the new NHL.
In a recent article I read, Jim shared that the one thing that they will be looking at this coming draft was players who demonstrated great character in addition to skills. They planned on having lengthy interviews with potential draft candidates so they can assess the other intangibles that they would bring to the dressing room like respect, sportsmanship, grit, work ethic, hockey sense, selflessness, and leadership.
They already are seeing that transition with the breakout years they saw from Bo Horvat, then Brock Boeser, both prior first-round picks of the Canucks, and are hearing great praise of their first pick last year, Elias Peterson.
Although they would have liked to be one of the fortunate few to be top 3 in this year’s lottery, as has been the case the last two years, they will be picking later than they should, albeit not as late as it could be at 7th.
The same scouting method used to pick Bo, Brock, Elias under Jim’s watch will be used for this years pick, they plan to choose the best player in terms of skill, but also in terms of character to fit within their new culture of excellence they are aspiring to build.
Being a long-term resident in Vancouver, BC I have followed the Canucks for many years, although they have had 3 runs to the Stanley Cup, like the Washington Capitals (1998 run), they have not seen the puck bounce their way so the players rose and drank from the toughest trophy in sport to win.
Now only if my team, the Montreal Canadiens (unlike many who jumped off their wagon, I have been a Habs fan since I came out of the womb having grown up in Montreal), would go thru the same rebuild with drafting young players in addition to the last one that is now an alternate captain, Brendan Gallagher, just as it was with the Canucks, they need to get younger, and faster to mirror other franchises (but I digress).
In all the years that I have coached teams, I have done the same, I have drafted players (as well as their parents) based on their character traits and then developed their skills of the game vs. drafting the top skills players who more often than not were selfish, disrespectful, argumentative and at times lazy as they thought they did not have to work as hard as their teammates. More often than not, they would play for the name on the back of their jersey than the front of the jersey as all the players do for the all of the organizations I referred to above.
Although I referenced professional organizations, the same philosophy of looking for players who have great character, buy-in to team culture holds true for youth sports. Sometimes you are handed a team as a result of balancing, other times when coaching competitive teams you choose the players, but either way, the sooner that you develop the core values you aspire for as a coach with your players, the sooner you develop your own culture of excellence.
If you are not doing so already, when will you ensure that you develop your players into great people?
Let’s all work together to the bring the game back to the kids … where it belongs.
